OBS License inquiry

[jaejin]

Greeting.


This is JaeJin Chung from Zepetto and I'm a Game Designer of the project called Point Blank.


Point Blank (Hereinafter PB) is a fast-paced online first-person shooter game.

PB is currently servicing in more than one hundred countries and considered as the most successful online FPS game in Southeast Asia and Latin America territories.



Currently we are planning to adopt "Youtube Streaming" feature into our game through using your "Open Broadcaster Software".


Before we are entering actual development, there are few things that we would like to confirm on your software as below.



1. Commercial License Fee.

-> We do know that the software is open source and it's a freeware but we would like to confirm if there will be any charge of using your software if used on commercial product.

* Streaming feature will be provided to user freely.



2. Programing language :


-> PB is currently using C++ and we would like to know the type of programing language that has been used on your SDK to implement OBS.




Once again, we would like to gratitude on your effort and y our service and for your own information, Point Blank information can be found from below link.


http://www.fps-pb.com




Best Regards,

Jaejin Chung

 

[dodgepong]

There isn't an OBS SDK as much as there is just an OBS code repository. https://github.com/jp9000/obs-studio

It's released under the GPL2, so you're free to use it as long as you follow the GPL2. That means that if you link against it and distribute that new binary, the code must also be open source, and if people request the source code to it, you have to make that available. The entire license is available here: https://github.com/jp9000/obs-studio/blob/master/COPYING

 

[Lain]

Hi there, if you're looking for an SDK or something that would facilitate integration in to a game or something, we don't provide anything like that. OBS is a compositing/mixing tool that has capture features, it's not so much something that would or could be integrated in to a game. It's not really designed for that.

 

[R1CH]

To remove any ambiguity, if you use OBS (libobs) in your game, under the terms of the GPL license your game must be also be open sourced (even if it's a commercial product). If you aren't willing to do this then you cannot use OBS in your game at all.

 

[TsubasaQ]

What about use rights for the recordings? If I use OBS to make a recording or screencast, is that free for commercial use? Does this apply only to the use of these forums or to the recordings made with the software? I can't find any language about the ownership and use of the software, so I want to make sure as I'm looking to use OBS for work.

 

[Lain]

The license of the program only applies to the program, use of the program, distribution of the program, modification of the program, etc.

It does not apply to the content you create with the program -- that content is created by you, and thus owned by you to do with what you wish.

 

[TsubasaQ]

Thank you! That's exactly what I needed to know!

 

[Matt Morrissette]

I could not find details on the licensing and I wanted to get a clarification. For many GNU libraries (like Classpath), there is a linker exception that allows for the external library to link to a library but have a separate license as long as they are distributed completely separately from the primary library.

Is there a linker exception for the libobs and obs_frontend_lib? This would help plugins that need to link to less restrictive libraries (like LGPL) the ability to do so.

I'm trying to enhance the obs-websocket plugin or develop a new plugin (that goes on top of obs websocket) to use a WAMP protocol to allow for some really cool remote control functionality:
http://wamp-proto.org/

The best library to do this would be:
https://github.com/qflow/wamp

It is a LGPLv3 license which means I can't link to it from obs-websocket if obs-websocket needs a GPLv2 license nor can I develop my own plugin that is LGPLv3.

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#compat-matrix-footnote-9
https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/1021/how-do-i-upgrade-from-gplv2-to-gplv3

Additionally it seems that the license is a GPLv2 only license. If it was expanded to say GPL v2+ (i.e. v2 and higher), that would allow linking to LGPL libraries. There would have to be agreement by the contributors of the project but it would certainly give it more protection and flexibility.

 

[Lain]

libobs and obs-frontend-api are GPL2 and do not have any classpath-like exceptions.

 

[Matt Morrissette]

libobs and obs-frontend-api are GPL2 and do not have any classpath-like exceptions.

I see from the commit:
https://github.com/jp9000/obs-studi...d43e376#diff-7116ef0705885343c9e1b2171a06be0e

You originally committed the library under GPLv3 and then changed it to GPLv2. I'm not sure of the cause of this (you state community reasons). Because of this I'm unable to link to LGPLv3 libraries. The original OBS Classic says 2 or later. I see some ambiguity as many of the headers state (2 or later) but the license included is just 2. Can you confirm that it licensed under GPL 2 or later?

 

[Lain]

Wait I misread what you originally said -- you're saying you need GPL2+. The libraries should be GPL2+ -- see these headers: https://github.com/jp9000/obs-studio/blob/master/libobs/obs.h -- as you can see it's "either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version." at the top.

 

[Matt Morrissette]

Fantastic! That's all I needed. That will allow me to link a LGPLv3 library to be used inside an OBS Plugin. I appreciate the help!